


The Accident

by starboydjh



Category: Of Mice & Men (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 21:40:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3426500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starboydjh/pseuds/starboydjh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a huge argument between them, Alan abruptly leaves and Austin goes out looking for him. The night doesn't end up as planned. (I suck at summaries.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Been working on this for over a year now, and I'm really proud of how it turned out. Thanks so much for reading!! -xoxoh

“Yknow what? Fuck you, I’m done with this bullshit. Goodbye, have a nice life,” Alan yelled at me before slamming the front door hard enough that one of the photos on the wall next to it fell and shattered. We’d never been this angry at each other before. What had happened?

I didn’t know how it all started, but I was determined to get him back. So, in the pouring rain and the haze of my anger from the few hours before, I drove around looking for him. I could feel the heat of tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, but refused to let them fall. I was not going to be weak again, not going to be dependant on someone else for my happiness. This was finally the time to learn to push myself and see that I could find happiness in myself, not in some guy.

But Alan wasn't just some guy. He was one of the few people that got me entirely, loved me despite all my faults, and remembered that I was a real human being, not just a name or commodity to take advantage of. 

A few hours earlier, everything was fine. I swear. Now, everything was crumbling around us and I didn't know how it had happened. Had I done something wrong? Was I not good enough again? All the emotions I felt made me lose it. I had to pull over the car. I was pounding my hands against the dashboard, screaming hopeless cries of his name at the windshield. 

“I fucking hate you! I can’t do this, I hate you! I hate this!” Over and over again I screamed and yelled and sobbed until my chest hurt. But I didn't hate him, not all. I loved him more than anything. My issue was that I loved him far too much. I had let his love define me, and that was a dangerous thing for me to do. 

After an hour and a half of driving around trying to find him, I pulled over again and called everyone I could think of who might have seen him since he walked out. The first person I thought to call was Justin, since I knew they were really close. Maybe he was at Justin's apartment to cool down for the night. 

"Have you seen Alan?” My voice came out in a panic, my words rushed as I choked back tears. "We had a fight and he disappeared and I can't find him and it's raining and it’s dark and-" 

"Woah, woah, slow down, take a deep breath." Justin urged from the other end. "What happened?"

I stopped myself, tried to take a deep breath to keep myself from completely losing it again, and repeated everything I just said but slower. "Have you talked to him since about, maybe 10:30? He's not answering my calls or anything."

“No, sorry, haven’t heard from him since yesterday. You okay?” 

I sighed. “Yeah, I guess, no actually that's a lie. I just...” I shut my eyes, rubbing my forehead to try and think of what to say. My voice was choked again when I started talking. “We were fine this morning, and then all of a sudden we just imploded. I have no idea what happened but it was bad. Then he left and didn't tell me where he went." I realized I was making myself more panicked as I tried to explain myself, so I took a deep breath before continuing, "I’ve been through most of town in the past couple of hours and haven’t seen him. All I need to know is that he's safe. If he doesn’t want to talk to me that’s fine, we were both pissed at each other, but if something happens to him I’ll never forgive myself."

“I’ll text him and ask him where he is and keep an eye out for him. Hope everything works out.” 

"It’s worth a try. Thanks so much.” 

After a few more calls to the other three members of the band, some of the crew that lived close to us, our friends, practically everyone on my contacts list, I still couldn’t figure out where he was. At this point, I was sitting in my car with the phone on the passenger seat, fiddling with my engagement ring. He still had his on when he left, so maybe there was still some hope for us. I felt as if I was a shell with nothing left inside, heavy and hollow. I hugged my knees up to my chest and rested my forehead on them, sighing and silently praying that at the very least Alan was safe. If something happened to him after we had a fight, I would never be able to forgive myself. 

My phone ringing pulled me out of my trance. I lept at the phone and hoped Alan’s name would pop up, but I was sadly mistaken. I picked it up anyways, not caring that I didn’t know the number.

“Is this Austin Carlile?” A woman’s voice rushed from the other end. “This is Nurse Lucy from Briar Hospital downtown. What relation do you have to someone named Alan Ashby?”

“Um, yeah, this is Austin speaking, I’m his fiance. What’s wrong?”

“We have Alan in the emergency room. There’s been an accident.” 

“What?” Immediately my head went into a tailspin. Of course. The one time we totally crash and burn, he gets into an accident. Just our luck. 

“I’ll explain what happened when you get down to the emergency room okay? Just try and stay calm and breathe. Will you be alright to drive yourself?”

I shook my head to try and keep myself from losing it again. “Yeah, I’m um, I’m just on the other side of town so I’ll be there in like fifteen minutes.” My voice sounded detached, like I wasn’t really here. I wanted to cry, I wanted to yell again, this time out of fear, but there was nothing left, I had barely enough energy to keep my eyes open. "This isn't happening, this isn't happening," I muttered to myself over and over again. The universe seemed like it wanted to shit on me all night long, so even though it was nearing one in the morning, the usual LA traffic was much heavier than it normally was this time of night. I considered getting out of my car and running but that would take even longer than driving. I needed to get there as fast as possible. Even if he didn't want to see me again, it was what I needed to do because he truly was my everything. 

The hospital was eerily quiet, but my thoughts were not. I just kept thinking 'you caused this, you did this,' over and over again. Logically I knew I wasn't the one that hit him, yet I still felt personally responsible. Parking my car far away from the entrance (because of course there wouldn't be any other spots) I ran as fast as I could through the rain to the doors and shook my head a couple times to wake myself up. There was a grouchy looking older woman at the desk who eyed me suspiciously and droned "How can I help you?" in a monotone when I approached the desk. 

"Um I got a call from someone earlier that my fiancé got in a car accident?" I rushed out, not really caring if I sounded pushy or demanding. 

She sighed almost in annoyance. "What's her name?"

"His name, actually, Alan Ashby." She gave me another look and typed a few things into the computer in front of her, then spent what felt like an eternity clicking around on the screen. 

"And your name?"

"Austin Carlile." More computer clicks filled the silence. I started tapping my foot, then my finger on the desk in front of me, trying not to think about the fact that Alan could be dying back there and I wasn't right by his side.What could she be doing that was taking this long? "I know it might be against hospital policy because I'm not immediate family, or you might not just like people like me for whatever reason, but please, I need to see him," I begged. The second part came out a little harsh, but I had grown used to responses like that.

"Calm down, I'm looking that up right now. We'll get you back there. I promise." So maybe she wasn't as grouchy as I thought. "Usually with severe trauma cases like this there's limited or no visitation, but once he's stable enough you're allowed to go back. Sit over there for now and we'll call you when it's okay to go back." 

"Severe trauma?"

"That's what his file says at the moment. Go have a seat please, there's others waiting to check in." 

I nodded weakly and made my way over to the waiting area opposite the desk. There was no use trying to fight her so I could see him, she didn't have any say in whether or not he was stable. And, I was done trying to fight against the universe by myself. All I could do was wait. 

The only other people in the area were an older woman and what looked like her grandchild playing on an iPad. The woman smiled sympathetically at me when I sat on the far end of the couch. "You look exhausted," she remarked quietly. 

I nodded. "I am. Been worrying and emotional more than I'd like to admit today so..." 

"Everything'll be okay, I promise. Who are you here for?"

"My fiancé got in an accident after we had a huge fight so tonight's been like one big self inflicted guilt trip," I had no idea why I was opening up to this total stranger but she seemed like she genuinely wanted to help. 

"Don't blame yourself, the universe is weird sometimes." She chuckled quietly. "She'll be fine, I promise."

I smiled slightly. I wanted to correct her but I wasn't in the mood for that conversation. "Hopefully." 

The older woman sighed whistfully. “You remind me of my husband...he was tall and handsome just like you. Loved music, he was a musician. He had a huge heart, and these big brown caring eyes that you knew held an old soul.” The way the woman continued to describe her husband sounded a lot like me, eerily so. I wasn’t sure if it was just pure coincidence or if something freaky was going on, and I didn’t have the mental energy to figure it out right then. I just politely half-listened to her talk, running over the events of the night in my head for the millionth time in a futile attempt to figure out how this all started. I wanted to break through the doors to the elevator and get to where Alan was, but I couldn’t. And that fact was killing me inside. 

“Mr. Carlile?” The woman at the front desk droned, “You’re allowed to go back now.” She was holding out a visitor’s tag for me, and I practically dove at her and grabbed it. I thanked her about a million times and ran to the elevator. It felt much too slow but it beat taking the stairs. "I was directed up here from the front desk, I'm here to see Alan Ashby? I'm his fiancé," I said to the girl behind the desk who looked about my age. 

"Yeah, I figured Id see you. I'm Lucy, the one who called you earlier. Lemme see your visitor's tag and then I can tell you where his room is." She glanced back at her computer when she took the pass from my hands. "By the looks of it, he just got out of surgery about a half hour ago, he's looking alright. Pretty banged up, but he'll live. We won't know completely until he wakes up though. "

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. He's alive. He'll be okay. I pulled the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my hand and dabbed the corners of my eyes a few times. "That's all I needed to hear."

"Follow me, I'll show you where his room is." She smiled and motioned for me to follow her down the white hallways. White, white, always white, these places. I hated it, they looked too clean all the time. "Here we are, 317." 

"Thank you so much," I said before she smiled and turned to walk away. Before she did, she looked at me and told me "I wanna see wedding photos when you two tie the knot. He looked pretty rough when he came in, but I hope you don't mind my saying- you picked well." She made me chuckle a bit before she walked away. 

When she was out of earshot I muttered to myself "Yeah, well he's marrying down." I sighed and turned to face the door. I was still trying to keep my eyes open, I honestly felt like I could pass out right at that very moment. My shoulders and neck were killing me, my knees felt like the could give out, I almost fell asleep each time I blinked, but I needed to stay awake until I knew with absolute certainty Alan was okay. 

I sat next to him and pulled my chair as close to the bed as possible. He was curled up under the blankets laying on his side, little bandages everywhere and one big white bandage around his midsection, just above his waist. There was a big blue sign on the end of the bed that said “TRAUMA” in white letters, which scared the living shit out of me. His hair was all matted and still damp, he would've had a fit if he saw how it looked, but he was okay. He was safe now. That's all that mattered to me.  
"I'm here, it's okay." I ran my fingers through his hair and lightly placed a kiss on his forehead. He smiled a little in his sleep, just a flash of something that made me breathe a sigh of relief yet again. 

"Listen- I'll probably say this all again when you wake up, but I'm so sorry. This is all my fault." I gently rested my hand on the back of his neck and ran my thumb along his jawline, feeling his warm skin under my hands. He always ran a little warm, which was one of the many things I loved about him. "I'm sorry. If I wasn't so stupid then you'd be okay and not-" my voice broke as I spoke. "You wouldn't have been hit and you wouldn't be in pain and we'd be at home and safe and- shit. I really caused a mess didn't I? I'm like the worst person ever right now." I buried my face in the thin sheets of the bed and sighed, then turned my face to look up at him. "You seem like you're okay right now, huh? Nothing's hurting?" Oddly enough, talking to him while he was asleep was helping me relax. For a while, I just laid there, my fingers ghosting over his skin, trying to relax. 

I almost fell asleep like that, but Alan starting to try and roll over and a slight groan slipping from his mouth almost shocked me awake. That was his "I'm in a lot of pain" noise. Shit. 

"Hey, babe? Can you hear me?" I asked, and he made that noise that made my heart shatter again. "What's wrong, what hurts?" 

"Head, side, chest, everything, fuuuck," he muttered while hiding his face in his arms and curling into himself. 

"It's ikay, you're okay." I untangled some of the knots in his hair and rubbed his back slightly, in vain attempts to help him calm down. "Just relax, you're fine." 

"Your hands are freezing," he told me, before continuing and asking why he was here. 

"You're at the hospital. We got in a big fight and you left and I got a call to come down here because there had been an accident." 

He glanced at me with eyes that were still foggy from the anesthesia. "You look like you died."

"No but I thought you did when I was looking for you for two hours," I muttered. "But that's besides the point. You're safe now, okay?" 

He sighed and laid his head down again. I ran my fingers through his hair over and over again, something that always helped him relax. "What happened?" he asked again. 

"I don't know, I just showed up when someone called me," I told him again. He seemed really irritable, which was understandable. He was in a lot of pain and probably scared and confused, so I didn't hold it against him and tried not to lose my temper. In that moment, it was clear that our fight was forgotten, at least by him, but I knew we'd have to talk about what happened between us. The aftermath was too big not to figure out why it happened. 

At six in the morning, Alan fell back to sleep so I decided to get some fresh air and walk around the hallway. I was still exhausted, and at this point it was only getting worse. I was running on fumes, but I didn't want to go home in case something happened. Alan seemed fine but I didn't let myself think that his condition couldn't change in a second. 

I wandered around the hospital for a few minutes until I ended up in the small chapel subconsciously. I slipped into the back row and knelt down, the action slightly foreign to me now that I hadn't been in this position in a while. The only person I wanted to talk to right now was my mum. I was glad there was no one else there. 

"Um..." My mind was running a million miles an hour so I couldn't think of what to say. "I'm sorry, you know I can be kind of bad with words sometimes. But all else aside, please just help me get through tonight. I know I need to get some rest, and I want to so badly, but I just can't do that. Make sure he stays here, too. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if the....worst happens and I didn't get to apologize for our fight. I wish you were here to help me, 'cause I have no idea what to do or where to go or anything. Please, just tell me what to do. I need him in my life, Mum, he's the only person I've loved this much since you... left. I probably sound like such a broken record right now. I'm sorry, I just need some kind of guidance. Please, keep him safe, whatever you have to do, whoever you have to convince, please, keep him alive. For me." I let the words hang in the air for a moment before I actually felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. 

Once I had said everything I needed to, I made my way back up to the waiting room. In the elevator, I let the wall support my weight, too tired to stand on my own two feet. I was vaguely aware of someone else getting in the elevator when it stopped, but before they were even in the elevator my legs gave out underneath me. Everything faded to black as the person shouted for doctors and someone else held the elevator open. 

It was quiet. Too quiet. There was a lot of commotion going on around me, people rushing everywhere, shouting my name. It sounded like I was underwater. Everything was muted, phasing in and out with each breath. One voice sounded much more clear than all the others, and much more familiar. 

“Austin... can you hear me? It’s Mom. I’m sorry to scare you like this. I just needed to talk to you somehow. I met Alan finally. Oh, he’s so perfect for you. Those eyes, that smile. He’s the kind of soul you need. You’re always calm around him, huh? I know how anxious you get sometimes. When I met him, want to know the only thing he could think? ‘I have to get back to Austin, I have to wake up.’ Even in a brief moment of death, you were the only thing he could think of. He loves you so much more than you realize. He’s like you, he’s a fighter. I promise you that he’ll be fine, and that your relationship will be fine.” She sighed, and I could almost feel her fingers running through my hair. “My sweet boy. You’ve done so well. I’m so proud of you. Keep going for me, okay? Just listen to what he has to say. This will be hard, I know, but keep a level head and keep moving forward. I have to go now. I love you, hun. Now you just have to-”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conclusion of The Accident

“-Open the door. Please Austin," a pitiful sounding voice I recognized as Alan's pleaded from the passenger side door as I shocked myself awake. It had all been a dream? What was going on? When had I fallen asleep? In my car, nonetheless. 

"I know your mad at me but please, open the door. We can fix this. Please."

I couldn't stand to hear him so upset any longer, so I popped the locks and turned the heat up, the rain splashing into my car when he opened the door. He sank down into the seat, sopping wet, eyes still red rimmed and teary. We both sort of sat there for a couple seconds in awkward silence before Alan finally said something.

"I'm so sorry, for all of it. For making you angry and for running off like that and probably scaring the living piss out of you by just disappearing and... just everything, I'm sorry!" He shouted, trying to mask his emotions with anger, as he usually did. He didn't do it well though, his voice hiccuping with sobs that broke my heart.

"No, no, don't be sorry, it was both of us okay? Come here," I reached across the center console to wrap my arms around him, trying to make sense of my dream. It had been so real, everything seemed like it was actually happening. 

"Can we just go home? I'm freezing and so are you." I nodded and kissed his soaking wet hair, then turned back towards the wheel, keeping his hand in mine as I drove. I wasn't letting him go anytime soon, not after tonight. The whole way home he kept apologizing for everything, which I didn't even bother trying to argue over with him, even though I wanted to. We would've gone around in circles for hours until the same thing happened again. "Austin you're shaking. Are you alright?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I just had a weird dream when I dozed off, I'm fine." 

He didn't say anything the rest of the ride home, maybe a short fifteen or twenty minutes. "Careful of the glass from the frame by the front door, I didn't clean it up before I left to find you." I murmured when we pulled into the driveway.

"Which frame?" Alan asked with huge scared eyes.

"Not sure, I didn't look."

"If I broke that photo of you and your mom together- ugh, I screw everything up." He held his head in his hands and gently hit it against the dashboard a couple times. I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up to face me.

"Alan, stop. This isn't helping. Let's just-" what my mom had said to me in the dream was still kicking around in my head, so I repeated what she'd said to me. "Let's keep a level head, and keep moving forward. Yeah, this is gonna be hard, on both of us, but we'll figure it out, okay?" He nodded, eyes flicking from mine to my lips. "I love you." I murmured, which made him smile a little.

"I love you too." We sat again for a few seconds until I lightly kissed him, making him smile again. 

"Cmon, let's get you cleaned up," I said as I got out of my car, Alan following. I was careful to step over the glass, as was Alan, but unlike me he stopped to pull the picture from the frame out of the litle pile of rubble. 

"God dammit, Austin I'm sorry, it was that picture." Alan groaned, his voice choked again. I knelt down next to him and gently took the photo from his hands, rubbing his back.

"I'll go out and get another frame tomorrow. It's fine. Nothing that can't be fixed." 

That seemed to relax him. "You sure?" I nodded, smiling at him. "Okay." After he answered, a shudder ran through him.

"You're freezing, go take a hot shower, I'll be in bed when you're done." I basically demanded, helping him stand up.

I didn’t even bother taking off my jeans or my shirt and jacket, just climbed into bed after kicking my shoes off and finally relaxed. I didn’t want to fall asleep though, for fear that I would be back in the dream I’d been having again. My heart was still going a million miles an hour, but stress and high blood pressure would do that to a person. Not long after, the shower shut off, and I felt Alan’s weight dip the mattress slightly. When I turned over to face him, I chuckled a bit. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt and some fleece pyajama pants, both far too big for him. “Really? My pyjamas?” He smiled back at me sleepily.

“Don’t laugh, they smell like you and not wet dog.” We were both quiet for a few minutes until he looked up at me with nervous eyes. “We’re okay, right?”

Truthfully, I didn’t know how to answer that question. So I simply said, “If we aren’t, then tomorrow we will be,” and that was the end of it. That was the best answer I could think, and I thought that it was true. We’d talk about what happened tomorrow, figure out what went wrong, fix it, and move on. Right now, everything was anxiously calm: my body, my mind, and Alan’s breathing had returned to normal, but the air still felt like we were on edge. It was as if we were in a huge glass bubble, one of those thin delicate ones you float tealights in, and one wrong move would shatter it again. Alan’s back wasn’t pressed up against me like he usually was, he was shuffled as close to the other edge of the bed as possible without falling off. It was better than I’d expected though, I figured he wouldn’t even want to be in the same room as me let alone share a bed with me. 

The familiar voice from earlier came back later that night when I fell asleep. 

“You’ll be okay. I pulled a few strings for my boys. I love you, hun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking around for this!! I'm really proud of how it turned out.


End file.
